Doctoral Dissertation Research: Acquisition of Phonological Processes in Heritage Language Speakers

该奖项是根据2021年美国救援计划法案（公法117-2）的全部或部分资助。遗产双语者是已经获得他们的第一语言，社会中的少数语言，同时或顺序与多数语言的发言者。多数人语言的压力通常会导致这些说话者的成人发音系统中的多数语言向传统语言的迁移。然而，很少有人知道的力量，发展和语言迁移的方向作为遗产的扬声器获得系统的接触，在童年时期的多数语言。本文通过比较儿童和成人的传统语言使用者，探讨了年龄和传统语言接触程度对语言双向迁移率的影响。本论文研究的是传统语言中辅音到元音序列中的词外部连接的产生。儿童和成人遗产发言者，少数民族语言的单语发言者，以及多数民族语言的单语发言者将参加每种语言的两个图片命名任务。这两个任务将引出功能词和内容词的序列，第一个任务使用真实的词，第二个任务使用新的词。还将向护理人员和成年参与者进行背景语言问卷调查，以检查对遗产语言的语言接触程度。了解传统语言中语音过程的习得将有助于教育工作者开发传统语言课程，并将使人们认识到包括针对特定发音现象的语音教学的重要性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).Heritage bilinguals are speakers that have acquired their first language, a minority language in the society, simultaneously or sequentially with the majority language. The pressure of the majority language typically results in majority-to-heritage language transfer in these speakers' adult pronunciation systems. However, little is known about the strength, development, and direction of language transfer as heritage speakers gain systematic exposure to the majority language during childhood. By comparing child heritage speakers to adult heritage speakers, this dissertation seeks to examine the effect of age and degree of heritage language exposure on the rate of bidirectional language transfer. This dissertation project examines the production of word-external junctures in consonant-to-vowel sequences in a heritage language. Child and adult heritage speakers, monolingual speakers of the minority language, and monolingual speakers of the majority language will participate in two picture-naming tasks in each language. The two tasks will elicit sequences of function and content words, the first using real words and the second using novel words. A background linguistic questionnaire to examine degree of language exposure to the heritage language will also be administered to the caregivers and the adult participants. Understanding the acquisition of phonological processes in the heritage language will help educators develop heritage language programs and it will bring awareness to the importance of including phonological instruction targeting specific pronunciation phenomena.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.